Erin Austin: Hello, ladies.
Welcome to this week's edition of the hourly to exit podcast.
I have a wonderful guest for you today, Samantha Hartley.
Welcome Samantha.
Thank you, Erin.
Well, thank you so much for joining us.
You know, we have a lot to talk about, but before we dive in,
would you introduce yourself
Samantha Hartley: to the audience?
Yes.
I'm Samantha Hartley.
My business is, samanthahartley.
com and I'm also known as Enlightened Marketing.
And I have a podcast called Profitable Joyful Consulting.
So those are the brand family and I am a consultant to consultants.
So I work with, women management consultants who are working
with businesses anywhere from 2 million to multi billions.
And usually they are experiencing the revenue roller coaster.
And sometimes they're so slammed with work in the business that
it's impossible for them to grow.
So I help them to multiply their revenues without exhaustion, working with perfect
clients on transformational engagements.
Those are year long, multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So when they do that, they start to experience more profit and
more joy in their businesses.
Sounds
Erin Austin: perfect.
Sounds great.
So before we get started, I wanted to talk about, well, myself for a second.
So I'm about to be an empty nester.
Oh, I'm counting the days.
And so thinking about, you know, where next I know I'm not going to
stay where I am, which is in, kind of the excerpts of Washington, D.
C.
And so I'm asking people about, where they live and what they love about it
and might it be a place for an empty
Samantha Hartley: nester.
Oh, it's well, Martha's Vineyard is where I live year round.
It is a fantastic place to live nine months of the year.
And so I highly urge you to go and visit it.
It's a great place to visit.
I would say get an for a month and just check it out.
In the summertime, it swells to 150 to 200, 000 a month.
people.
And in the wintertime, it shrinks to about 15, 000 to 20, 000.
So we have a huge bustling tourist economy, but it's a tiny island, a proper
island, no bridges, no anything like that.
You get there by a boat or by an airplane.
It's only 45 minutes off the coast of Cape Cod.
So you can see the shore from The island.
And, you may have a lot of people have not heard of Martha's Vineyard, but may
have heard of Nantucket or Cape Cod.
That's all the Cape and islands are all a thing.
and it's a wonderful place to live right now, though, it
has a very long yucky spring.
And so I'm actually in Arkansas where I grew up, Arkansas, I can
tell you, and especially the town I'm in right now, Conway, Conway,
Arkansas is a college town.
There's three colleges here, including the university of central Arkansas.
So there's tons of wonderful things going on, and it's, has four seasons, also one
of which is unbearable, so our friends that we live with right now come and visit
us during the summertime, and we come to them in the spring, so we're having 66
degrees while they're having a snowstorm that's closing down the vineyard.
Oh, that is great.
So I recommend two locations.
that's my empty nester suggestion is always have two locations where you
can experience the best of both worlds.
Erin Austin: Well, I will say that one of my, I guess it's my bucket list is
to just always be in summer, just, you spend, summer, summer in the northern
hemisphere and winter, summer in the southern hemisphere and never I'm.
so over four seasons.
I don't ever need to have any season other than summer for the rest of my life.
And yeah, so I've been to Martha's Vineyard, but only in the summer
and only during the tourist season.
And I will only go when I can fly there directly from Nashville because I, so
I've never done the, ferry, although I think that would be an adventure.
So I should try that sometime.
So thank you for that.
I wondered what it's like.
They're, off season and I don't know why, but for some reason I thought because of
the, whatever the currents, whatever that you didn't get snowstorms, but you do.
Okay.
Samantha Hartley: All right.
Oh, yes.
We don't get anything as bad as they get on the mainland.
So it's cooler in the summer than on the mainland.
And all the weather's always milder there.
Erin Austin: All right.
Well, good to know.
I'm taking notes here.
Right.
So tell me about your typical client and, how do you help him or her and
how do they know that they need you?
what pain are they experiencing?
Like I need to go talk with Samantha.
Samantha Hartley: She's a her usually and her business is somewhere in the
low six figures and she aspires to have a business in the low seven figures.
So usually one to 2 million is what they're looking for from their business.
And, what they're experiencing is revenue rollercoaster means they,
have wonderful high months, but they also have some terrifying low months.
And that kind of inconsistency of revenues is super stressful.
And they're not quite sure how to fix that problem.
They also might be experiencing that they don't have revenue roller coaster.
They just have all slammed all the time.
And the owner is, this is usually a business that's, 500 to 750, and
they can't imagine a way to grow.
I can't imagine it.
So those, particular consultants.
Need me sometimes they're agency owners, but most often management consultants and
they're working with sometimes businesses.
You've heard of like the, fortune 500, but a lot of times it's just kind of,
midsize manufacturers or other kind of like mom and pops who are near them.
And I think what happens for a lot of us, a lot of my clients
are like me, ex corporate.
So we came out of corporate and we have a set of skills that didn't necessarily
include figuring out how to run a specifically consulting business.
And so when they come to me, I'm like, well, there's just some stuff to know.
And it's this, this, and this.
And so really quickly, we can turn their business around.
So for example, one of my clients she's a fashion consultant.
She works with high fashion brands to help them.
do visual merchandising.
And when she came to me, her business was doing really well, it was very much
time based, so hourly business and went from month to month with those clients.
And she didn't necessarily, again, it's like smart people, but there are certain
things that just don't occur to them.
So she hadn't thought of like, Setting up contractual relationships
with them where she works long term and there are certain commitments
from her side and from their side.
And so we just put a lot more structure and formality around her
business, improved her selling ability, other, you basic skills like that.
She doesn't actually even need marketing.
She has so many clients coming to her, but being able to enroll clients at
higher value and for longer term, it just immediately took the bumps out
of her business and out her revenues.
And Just yesterday, we were talking about it and the kind of relief that
she's feeling the ability to go away from the business and come back and just
knowing that those revenues are stable.
She finds she feels more passionate for her work, excited about the business.
And so that's been, really gratifying to see that result.
And it's not an unusual result.
Like so often I'll be talking with a client who's been working
with me for a while, and they're, just have that peace that you have
when you have stable revenues.
Yeah,
Erin Austin: absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, that making that transition from hourly to something other than hourly is
a big stumbling block for lots of people.
And I was having a conversation with someone couple weeks ago
where they were coming directly.
They referred to me as a lawyer to help them protect their intellectual
property, but they were still billing.
Hourly.
And I'm like, well, first of all, everything was just kind of an extra
set of hands, they're technology based.
And so they could, program things, they can do implementation,
they can do strategy.
They did all the things, for, their clients, whatever the
clients asked, we can do that.
Like, and they were very proud of the fact that they can do
whatever it is that you need to do.
And I'm like, I don't think you're quite ready for me because you need
to figure out a way to kind of.
put your stake in the ground about doing something in particular what's
the point of making you more efficient with intellectual property when
you're building by the hour, like.
That just means yes, you're gonna bill less , you know?
Samantha Hartley: Yeah,
Erin Austin: yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
You know, so let's, get you to a business coach first to get you like,
figuring out your business model and then let's, talk about how we
make sure that we start building,
Samantha Hartley: It's right.
But who taught business models when we all started?
Like, when you kind of put out your stake, you're like, usually,
especially in professions that are traditionally built by the hour, like
even the visual merchandising, most people, they think, well, how would
you bill if it wasn't that way?
So interestingly, I've worked with it consultants who came to
me with that situation and they were earning really well, but it
was like, they would have like a.
50, 000 a month and then like a 20, 000 a month.
So there's just these peaks and valleys in their billing.
But the problem was when they have team members who are billing by
the hour, they couldn't allocate those team members properly because
they didn't know the fluctuations.
Like how much are we going to build this month and how much
are we going to build that month?
And so what it required was saying to the client, between all
the, Partners and team members.
We're working for you 40 hours this month, and then 10 this
month, and then 30, and then 20.
Like, we can't schedule our people.
We can't figure things out.
So let's do this.
We're going to chart out the work.
We'll schedule the work, and you'll know when we're going to be there, and
we'll know what we're going to be doing.
And we're just going to be doing it, with this kind of a schedule.
So we give them like a project implementation plan
of how we're going to work.
And no matter how many hours that is, we'll levelize this
building so that it's a flat.
the number is, for example, 40 K each month that way, you'll
know, how much it's going to be.
You won't have lumpy expenses because even big companies don't want lumpy expenses,
and then we'll have the predictability of where our people will be and when.
And so when they did that, they just charted it out.
We think the project is going to take us this long.
It was 12 months.
We were going to do this.
Now you may see us more one month and less another month.
It'll all come out in the wash.
We're just going to deliver on these specific deliverables.
and so we put that plan together.
They went and sold it and it was immediately, that was a 40 K a month.
So it's a 480, 000 engagement that immediately after we set it up, like
within a week, they had sold that one in.
And then they did that with their subsequent clients.
And pushback is always, what if they're like, what, how much is by the hour?
And what I taught them to say was, that's not how we work.
That's not how we work.
We don't work by the hour.
we don't sell anything by the hour.
And that is not how we work.
And if you can begin to transition your clients to where it's about outcomes
and not about the hours, Then they'll come to you when they'll need you.
Erin Austin: Yeah.
And that brings us to, becoming more effective and more efficient
because then that, of course, increases your profitability.
But just to back up to the example that I was talking about, what he
did is that he had subcontractors.
So he would bring on, but he could never like, obviously get any more profitable
because he could just sell more hours.
And then, okay, he was building the client X and then he was getting
billed by his subcontractors Y.
And then all he ever had was that differential.
It could never get anywhere.
It's like, I can't get anywhere.
Well, because Yeah.
one, because your business model's broken.
Yes, exactly.
Exactly.
Alright, so, let's get to, becoming more efficient and effective with our delivery
so that we can increase our profits.
So you've already introduced the topic and so how do you.
Help people get comfortable with that transition.
Cause that's it, you know, it's great to say, we don't build by
the hour, but that's really scary.
when you are there with the client and feeling comfortable with, I can
actually scope this out in a way that I know is going to be profitable
and that I'm not going to, cause the clients are going to come in with
changes and they're going to want this.
And then suddenly it's like a totally, you know, so how do we, get from
Samantha Hartley: there?
there's a lot of client management in this.
There's also the expertise of knowing, like, if we plan this out, we can
tell how long it's going to take.
So if you're new in your business and you don't know, then it might
be better for you to do more hourly pricing or, flat rate pricing.
whenever I've had a client who's done this and there's been like massive overruns.
Well, then they can go to their client and say, listen, you we
budgeted it for this and this, we're having these massive overruns.
I mean, just because we said it was going to be this, it
doesn't mean you know, we can,
Allow for this kind of whatever to be out of control so you can have and I call
those grown up conversations like you can have a conversation with a client.
I was about to say confrontational, but it doesn't have to feel
confrontational, meaning you can just address the situation.
But when you're mature enough in your work, and this is usually
within the 2nd or 3rd year.
You know, if I come in and I do this work, like my clients in the
situation, we're going to have 14 members on this, they're going to be
giving it, is time based for them.
They're going to each be giving it five hours, or five days of their time.
It's going to add up to this much.
so they could mix and match that according to their expertise from the client
side, though, it can seem like, well, the client isn't interested in this.
They don't want to overpay per hour, but it's anytime we pay anything.
I've estimated what the hours are, and, , it doesn't really matter what the time is.
What the client cares about are either deliverables or outcome or both.
What they really want is like, just solve my problem.
And especially if you're doing complicated digital transformation, which I team
might do or for a lot of my clients.
A lot of my clients are leadership consultants or culture consultants,
and they're going in and they're trying to make massive organizational
change, transformational change.
So figure out what are the specific changes that we want to achieve?
Like, what's the goal of this initiative?
And then, how will we know it's been accomplished?
So what kind of behaviors do we want to see?
What kind of conditions in the work environment do we want to see?
So you're teaching the client to measure according to that as opposed
to the number of hours you put in.
Now, one of the things that, I think is important for consultants in general is
to know what outcomes you can promise.
So very often when we're doing hourly work, we're just saying, I'm just
going to show up forgive me, but like run my you know, be in my genius, but
you just show up and you like do your thing and then you get paid for that.
It's a very different level of responsibility, but also level
of fulfillment when you can say, No, actually, let me take the
lead in this instead of like, we're going to do 30 hours.
And at the end of it, you'll have 30 hours of access to me.
And I don't know going to happen with that, but probably we'll accomplish
your goals in this situation.
You're saying over the course of a year or whatever, time duration, we're
going to make these transformations in your organization or in your business.
And again, like, to me, there's more responsibility with that,
but I'm excited to do that.
Most of my clients are like, they want that challenge.
So it just changes the dialogue from showing up to
not presence, but performance.
Erin Austin: Yeah.
And I'm not a business coach, but I try to pretend to be one every once in a while.
Somebody asked me, I'll tell them what I think, because I listen
to people's podcasts like yours.
When I was talking to this person about like, how, like, I don't
know how I can possibly flat fee something because I have no idea.
And I'm like, it sounds like you don't really know your clients that
well, but you don't know who they are.
You don't know what their problems are.
You don't know how to, you're just kind of going in there and turning
in hours because otherwise you would.
They have a pretty good idea about what needs to be done in order
to get the result that they want.
And then you could put a price on that.
so that maturity thing, you know, and having, doing some figuring out either.
a niche, type of client that you can have or specific problem that you solve so
that you can kind of get really good at it and, develop a program around that.
Samantha Hartley: and that's where your signature system is also going to
come in because in the first year, it's easy for me to say, and, you know, and
then go in there and do your process.
But I do work with plenty of people who are like, Oh, I don't
know that I really have a process.
And as you and I both will say, they do.
They just, it might not be obvious to them yet.
So what I usually say is, spend a year or two in your work, see which things
get repeated, see what kind of challenges you enjoy working on, and then you're
going to develop solutions to that.
So year two or three is when, what I noticed with my clients, they start
to say, okay, I see what I'm doing.
And then their signature system begins to emerge and sometimes
we'll help them with that.
And sometimes that's the thing that they do on their own.
Then that signature systems job is to get those outcomes.
So efficiency and delivery comes when you're working according to that.
It's not trial and error anymore.
also, I feel like.
consultants feel like they can't promise outcomes because
they're like, I don't know.
I mean, it Once you have a signature system, you can make bigger promises
because, you know, that this is the way to get those results.
Erin Austin: Yeah, and as consumers of services as well, like, we want to know,
okay, what am I going to get for this?
Like, I don't want, my website, which is, frankly, Has a ton of content on
it, just because I write all the time and, but none of it is, there's no SEO.
There's no tech, all this stuff, that you're supposed to do.
I don't have any of that stuff.
And so I was talking to someone and he had a proposal for going
through and categorizing and.
Inventory and tagging and I'm like, okay, well, what am I going to get from that?
Like, well, I can't promise, you I have a pretty long sales cycle, you
know, between people coming and hanging out, it just feels like a deliverable
to me and not like a solution.
So yeah, as consumers, we want to on, what we're paying for as well.
So yeah.
Samantha Hartley: in our work, I think SEO and PR are similar to what you're
talking about in that they're like, I we cannot guarantee results in this
cause like whatever happens happens.
Now I can't also cannot guarantee results to my clients because
they have to take action and like.
there are joint accountabilities.
So this to me is part of a mature working relationship is that I say, here's
what I'm going to be responsible for.
This is what you're going to be responsible for.
And we both do our parts.
The likeliest thing, like the biggest promise that can make to you is
you're probably going to experience results like my clients have.
and somewhere along the way, if we're not trending towards that, one of us
will know and we'll course correct.
But you can make big promises in those situations.
So what your SEO person can say is what we found is when we've done
this for people's websites in the past, here's what usually happens.
That's what I would look for as a kind of comforting thing.
Because again, as a business owner, I know, I know can promise me results
and who can't promise me results.
but in that situation, I think.
You still want to hear, like, what's the closest thing, what's the biggest
promise you can make to me in integrity?
Right,
Erin Austin: right.
I am still thinking about that one, but we'll see what happens with that.
So, you, recently, well, I saw it on LinkedIn, but I think you did
a, podcast episode about it as well about partnerships and I've been
talking a lot about collaboration.
So very similar, obviously, from an intellectual property point of
view and a legal point of view.
I have my caution sign, you when we're thinking about going into
collaborations and partnerships from a business perspective.
What are you seeing as.
Best practices, things to be worried about and what's the best
we can hope from our partnership.
Samantha Hartley: well, I took a super dim view in the first episode
about them because nine times out of 10 in my personal experience with
clients and I've been in business for over 20 years, they almost always.
fail and fail extremely, like really badly, like people in court, people
trying to figure out how do we divide this business loan that we took out
together between ourselves individually.
someone, a partner decides to just stop working in the business, but we still
receive full salary because apparently that piece didn't get worked out.
women in just rev share partnerships will go into business with men
and give away their power to them.
and I say this because an advocate for women.
And so who I was really, wanting to caution were women, because I think in
a lot of cases I have noticed is I don't understand how all these big, powerful
women get into, Working relationships with men and then become small in that
situation and again, have seen it.
And so I'm very much cautioning everyone in general against, any situation
in which you feel like, well, I'm hoping that person will do sales.
I'm hoping that person will do, the parts of the business that I don't want to do.
If you don't have that explicitly outlined, then you are inferred.
Terrible surprise.
they're going into committed relationships, working relationships
before they've done dating.
This is what I would say.
So like, why don't we partner on a few short term projects as revenue
share partners before, why don't we collaborate before we, form a legally
binding agreement with one another?
and then one of the things that I urge them to do is think about
all the things you don't want to have a conversation about.
So, Aaron, what if I.
Get sick of the whole thing.
And I decide to go to Mexico for two years.
will you do?
What if you get sick of it and you decide what will I do?
what if we do this and the business really fails and we only make 50, 000
between us, then what are we going to like say all of the things that hope
nobody says or asks or whatever, what if you're, cousin suddenly wants to
get involved in the business and you.
Decide that's a good idea.
what if I don't want that?
So how will we make decisions?
How are we going to, choose clients?
How are we going to divide up expenses?
And what if I want to, pursue, an angle in the business that you don't choose to?
All of that, I think doesn't get discussed enough before someone goes
into business with another person.
And so that's what I really cautioned against, this week, the episodes
antidote came out where I interviewed, a.
Couple of partners who happen to be, Martha's Vineyard based business.
There were also the first two partners that I reached out to.
So I was looking around and I was like, well, gosh, there's gotta be
somebody who has a good partnership.
not in any of my clients.
And so I saw them and I thought, Oh, are they partners?
And.
They were like, yes.
And I thought, Oh, well, this'll be a great chance to kind of show
like, Oh, the good and the bad.
And like, with a real life example, and there'll be really great.
They don't have any negatives.
they're like the happiest couple you've ever seen in your entire life
in terms of a business partnership, which is great because guess what
healthy people make for happy partners.
And you can hear the way they both have happy marriages.
So what it says to me is.
who are the healthiest people that you know that you work with?
Like, you just don't get conflicts.
They don't misunderstand you.
They take responsibility, like self responsible.
You trust them implicitly.
You can have any hard conversation about anything.
It just shows you the extent to which having a healthy everything
is going to make this financially based relationship work.
Yeah, you know, it
Erin Austin: sounds like, kind of the 1 plus 1 equals 3 kind of, are
you coming to it as a whole person?
I guess it's kind of in a relationship thing and not as someone who
wants someone to complete them.
Like, I have these deficiencies and I am coming to help you fill in my deficiencies
versus I have this strength and you have this strength and together Boom.
Right.
And so the same applies there, thinking about tech startups, if I'm wanting and
the kind of the common understanding is that, you kind of need, like, that
finance guy and you, the tech guy.
Right?
And so they have, complimentary skills and I'm wondering with an
expertise based business, what are the complimentary skills?
Is it another.
Expert.
Is it someone who's like the operations person versus the, delivery?
Like, how do the best partnerships work in that space?
Samantha Hartley: Having again, having seen so few of them that
are working successfully, I have another example that I can draw on.
And in that case, there were 3 partners and.
2 of them were rainmakers and 1 of them wasn't, but the 1 that wasn't
was such a deep expert in the work.
for more of an academic sense that she would do a lot of the, IP
creation, content, things like that.
So she was really able to kind of like drill down into the meat of the
work that they would give to clients.
the other two also were very strong in that area, but she
was, significantly stronger.
And then the two other partners.
were equally good at rainmaking also had those big, kind of
client facing personalities.
So one wanted to travel and present this one didn't want to travel so
much, but she was really great in client relationship, management.
So it's kind of the thing that you're saying, where it's a lot of whole.
Partners, whole individuals, like any single one of them
could have had a business.
Although I think the one who was the deep subject matter expert
probably would have belonged more in academia than in private business.
But because she had the other two out in front, it really worked out for her.
So, To me, the killer is when not everyone is rainmaking because then
there starts to be resentments about like, well, I brought in all this
business and how are we dividing this up?
The partners that I profile, , this week on the podcast, they have
a 50, 50 partnership and they just don't even dig into things.
they both are bringing in clients.
They both are doing delivery and they're not kind of like nitpicking about,
the money, which I think is as long as you're paying close attention to
the money, you don't have to nitpick.
I just want there to be kind of like transparency and, awareness of it.
but in the case of those three partners, they felt good about the divisions of
things, what's interesting is when I first went in and, worked with them,
they had an employee, there was only one actual, I mean, they may have all
been employees, but there was a full time employee on their team, one team
member full time, always got paid.
Guess who didn't always get paid?
The partners, right?
this is why I'm like, gosh, you have to watch out for this stuff.
terms of like, women classically will want to make others whole
before they make themselves whole.
And here was a trio doing it, that kind of thing.
So, it won't be surprising to hear that I, recommended and they did do,
they did let him go because, that just was not the right thing for them.
in general, I think successful partnerships have trust, they
have complimentary skill sets that are, as you're saying, 1
plus 1 equals 3, not 3, 4, 3, and, everyone is dedicated to sales and
Erin Austin: and they enter a partnership agreement.
I'm not going to get it because I'm, I'm not a, corporate structure person, but I
will say just generally with the general partnership that each partner can bind.
The partnership unilaterally, unless you have something,
in writing to the contract.
So you want to make sure that you have all that stuff, figured out
Samantha Hartley: and.
Absolutely.
You want to have a key person insurance in case something happens to your You want
to have a buy sell agreement so that if something happens to them, you're not in.
One of the things I mentioned is you don't want to be in,
find out that you're suddenly.
Your business partner is your, dead partner's son.
That is exactly right.
Which can happen if you don't have these things spelled out.
Exactly.
You all of the stuff that you don't, people don't think about until it happens.
And then you're like, Ruh
Erin Austin: I have a law school, friend who like her, literally her
entire practice was breaking up partnerships that went sideways.
Like,
Samantha Hartley: it
Erin Austin: is a cottage industry, like trying to unravel,
partnerships that go sideways.
It really is, can be quite a mess.
It really can.
All right.
So, well, that brings us to, you mentioned, having one partner
who digs into the IP more and someone else who does other things.
So talking about intellectual property, I've been currently, uh, Starting
to track ways that business coaches talk about intellectual property
without saying intellectual property,
And so like, now they, use, you know, kind of scaling and a scalable offer.
Or they have different ways that they talk about, I should have my list here.
And so I'm gonna, at some point I'm gonna write about that.
but at the end of the day, if we are going to decouple our income from our
time, we have to be selling something other than our time, which has to
be an asset of course, of course.
And when we're experts that asset is intellectual property.
So when you are working with your clients, like how are you talking
to them about intellectual property?
What kind of questions are they asking you about?
Samantha Hartley: I will usually talk about having a signature
system or a proprietary approach to the work that they do.
And I'm doing that.
Less from point of view that you are, although, it is important to
me that they have, IP and that they have, something that, is an asset
that is separate from themselves and can do some of the work for them.
I will use it in terms of standardizing their work so that
they get, consistent results.
That's part one.
The second thing that I want is for them to bring in subcontractors so
that they don't have to work as hard because the subcontractor doesn't
need to, bring their own ideas and IP.
They can merely the IP that my clients have.
I can teach you to do it.
the Acme Inc way or the Jane Smith consulting way that is.
our proprietary approach to working with the clients.
So my subcontractors can come in and do that.
And then I think a really good thing here too, is that you can, give this
to the client and they then can also implement, according to your IP.
You can turn that into e learning or e courses or whatever, which means that
your work is accessible by clients who might not otherwise be able to afford you.
It can scale where you cannot.
So there's.
I'm sure, I'm just repeating things that you're saying all the time.
But those are the things that I'm teaching my clients to do with IP.
And specifically, they're very often with me at the stage where
they have to kind of like extract.
I always do this, motion as if they're like pulling the skeleton out of the body.
Here's the structure, which I feel like I intuitively show up and do, but then I
realized in a little while, Oh, hang on.
I do have like a seven step system or my, five, part, whatever that piece
is critical to them, experiencing leverage in their business.
So, signature systems are under, in my world, that's under the, heading of
leverage, like ways that we make more of our time and, pulling that IP out working
with it independently is one of them.
Now, my favorite example of clients who did this were these, consultants
who just believed so strongly that their clients wanted to co create,
they co created the workshops or the.
If they were going to come in and work with a client for six months on
something, they would co create that approach of what they were going to do.
And at point I said to them, why are you co creating this with the clients?
Like, they don't know anything about how to achieve, let's say it was culture.
They don't anything about how to achieve culture change.
Like, why are you co creating this with them?
Now they really like to do it.
I was like, do they really?
And they were like, yeah, we feel like, oh, well, maybe not.
And do you believe that there's like a, right way to do this?
And they said, Oh, yes, definitely.
I was like, well, then why did you let the clients get in here and muddy that up?
It turned out it was because they were billing by the hour and they
wanted to, pack in the hours that they worked on the IP, because if
they didn't have all of that time that they spent co creating their approach,
then they weren't charging enough.
And I said, here's the deal is if you're charging 138, 000 for this.
That's what it's worth.
The client doesn't want to do all that nonsense and you don't
want to recreate your thing.
Just charge 138, 000 for the engagement.
And they were like, mind blown.
and it's just not obvious people that like, they're saying it's this valuable.
So that is, I think the way that you can get to IP that is
separate from your own value.
And one of first things that I'll do with my clients to help them double
their is to say, if you come in and you're like, well, it's a, whatever long
engagement, and it's usually, 50, charged separately for the IP and my signature
program, the Jane Smith approach to getting whatever benefit is 25, 000.
And so that's.
000 engagement so that we as consultants learn to charge for the
IP and clients learn to go like, Oh, the system itself has inherent value.
I love
Erin Austin: that.
I'll say the last time I billed hourly, I wish I could say this was, I'm just
going to say that it was, cause there was another time, but the time I said,
It was, when someone came to me and it was, you know, I have done a lot
of work in market research and so they've been using other lawyers and
they always had to explain everything, blah, blah, blah, and they come to
me and I like just knew the answer.
Just did it done.
Took me a couple hours, like, oh, that's great.
And I was really I'm like.
Wait a minute.
I just saw their entire problem for two hours worth of billables
because I knew the answer already, I'm like, okay, I know,
Samantha Hartley: didn't make you so cranky.
You are penalized for efficiency and expertise.
Yes, yeah, that was the tax on being brilliant and fast.
Erin Austin: It was.
There's so many times.
So, well, thank you for sharing that.
So, as you know, this is a very meta broad podcast.
I'm a female founder of an expertise based business that I am hoping to have
some saleable assets at the end of it.
How about you?
You're a female founder of an expertise based business.
What is the plan for
Samantha Hartley: your business?
So like an exit strategy and creating assets.
I mean, I love the idea of creating assets in my business.
I do have, I'm a teacher by personality and archetype.
And so I just create numerous programs.
I have a year long program about how to do things, one of
which is a signature system.
So I do have a signature system about how to create signature systems.
Like that's speaking of So, I just think in those terms and any of those could
easily stand alone as a program, and it's possible that in someday in the near
future, they will and I'll either market or sell those individually and right now.
I haven't done that yet.
So I don't know if those want to be books or what those want to be, or if the whole
business wants to be sold, but I feel like I'm such a place of enjoying where
I am in the business and that I love it.
And I really like a high intimacy business.
So I have private clients.
and then I have group coaching clients and.
It's just really so fulfilling that it's not that I don't think about that kind of
time horizon and sometime in the future, but it's not an urgent thing for me yet.
All
Erin Austin: the good news is that when we are doing things that create
a scalable business, we're also doing those things that create a saleable
business because that is creating that independence from the owner.
and, not relying on time.
So that's fantastic.
So, yeah.
So as we wrap up, as you know, I believe that wealth in the hands of
women can change the world and working on creating a more equitable economy.
So I'd love to share with the audience organizations that are
doing great work in that space.
And is there someone that you'd like to share?
Samantha Hartley: my go to on this is Kiva.
I remember the first time I heard about microloans and I just thought it was
the best idea because I think, when we're doing all these massive country
loans to somewhere and I was like, well, who's doing something like right here.
and so I have supported Kiva for, I mean, probably as long as they've been
around, as long as I've heard of them.
And, I'm always choosing a woman owned business.
Who's, I usually have like an equal amount of ones that are like North
America based and then ones that are in exotic countries doing things because
I, so completely agree with you and what I can tell you is in my international
travels and having lived overseas that when women are thriving, everybody's
thriving and it's very often the women who are the backbone of the economy
and when I've lived in places where I've Oh my gosh, it didn't seem like
this country had its act together.
There were women who were like, getting up, making things happen, before everybody
got up and after everybody went to bed.
And if she just had a little bit of money to invest, then she could
make wonderful things happen.
And, for other users of Kiva, you know that Occasionally someone
will default on a but it's like so almost never that I feel like
their stats are really incredible.
And , it's just a great investment to me.
Erin Austin: I think people underestimate the power of even
small loans, small investments.
It's not, doesn't have to be a million bucks, and it can go very far.
I mean, I'm just thinking about closer to home.
This is not a key book type of thing, but, when.
I think there was a city.
Was it Houston?
Maybe that was giving a thousand dollars a month to people and the big
difference that it made in their lives.
Just it's, you know, that's
Samantha Hartley: UBI.
Yeah.
That's universal basic income and they're doing experiments all over
the world with universal basic income.
And I am a.
Personally, just a huge proponent of it because as you're hearing, like, I
think the that we feel like is, the first barrier to it is, well, nobody's giving
me and nobody gave me, and I feel like, okay, but we're trying to do better.
Now, the other argument that we hear is like, well, they'll probably
just spend it on, and I'm like, what they're spending it on their bills.
And when we look at what people actually spend it on, it's just like
I was saying, but the default rate, the people who abuse that program are.
Almost none ever, even though we might imagine that they would and
it, just funny things happen like suddenly all of the basic conditions
and quality of life increase and it's for such small amounts of money.
So the experiments I've seen have been like 500 a month or up to 2, 000 a month
and it's like you can lift people out of poverty for such a small amount of money.
And I feel like.
If we can, why not?
Yes, exactly.
Erin Austin: Exactly.
And we will put the, link, to keep it in the, show notes.
And so while we wrap up, I know you have a fantastic offer.
can you tell us about it?
Samantha Hartley: I have a document I put together.
It's called, the definitive guide to winning six figure clients.
And I put it together.
Cause a lot of people are like, what?
Six figures.
That's crazy.
I want to, I mean, I'm.
Yeah.
Only doing a few hundred six figure business in my business.
Like, how could I have that in a single client?
And I'm like, I have a lot of clients who have figure clients.
So, this is basically a case study of some of my individual clients.
So you see a lot of different kinds of businesses where they're doing it.
And then it's.
Actually, just a how to step by step guide of how to make these
transformational offers that are, based on having, a specific outcome, charging
a specific amount of money for that.
And so that you as the individual consultant, you have money coming in
on the books for months in advance, as far as you can see into the future.
That sounds fan.
Oh, and you can get it at, yeah, you can get it at six figure com.
So it's six, the numeral six figure clients.
com.
Erin Austin: Fantastic.
And then where can they find you generally
Samantha Hartley: by me at Samantha Hartley.
com and, I'm Samantha Hartley on most of the socials.
Facebook, Instagram,
Erin Austin: your Facebook person to, what are you doing on Facebook?
Samantha Hartley: So legacy on Facebook, you know, I wouldn't be
on Facebook if I wasn't for work.
Erin Austin: Well, thank you so much.
We will have links to all of that in the show notes.
It has been fantastic to have you here.
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us and I hope we can do it again.
Samantha Hartley: Thank you, Erin.
I have learned so much from you over the several months, so it's been great
knowing you and I love being able to be here with you and your listeners.
Erin Austin: Awesome.
Thank you.